Pubdate: Wed, 15 Feb 2012
Source: Calgary Herald (CN AB)
Copyright: 2012 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact: http://www2.canada.com/calgaryherald/letters.html
Website: http://www.calgaryherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/66
Author: Michael Den Tandt

WHERE DOES BIZARRE CRIME FIXATION OF CONSERVATIVES COME FROM?

Bob Rae can gripe about "evidence-based decision-making" all he 
likes. The truth is that, on the big economic files, Conservatives 
are the party most consistently hewing to reason and common sense. 
It's why they keep getting elected.

All of which makes their bizarrely irrational, ham-fisted, 
counterproductive handling of justice and security all the more odd. 
What do Rob Nicholson and Vic Toews think they're achieving, beyond 
throwing occasional hunks of dripping meat to a social conservative 
base that, truth be told, is secure without it? Are they afraid the 
Charles Bronsons across the aisle will accuse them of being soft on 
crime? Here's a thought: Perhaps Tories should rather begin to worry 
that fair minded Canadians from all regions may come to view them as 
demagogues.

Consider the record. First, prison farms: not a kitchen-table issue 
for most voters, admittedly. But in their insistence on shutting the 
six farms down (in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and New 
Brunswick), despite negligible savings and plentiful evidence they 
were functioning well, Harper & Co. displayed a dogged irrationality: 
Prisoners are bad. Why should they be allowed to work outdoors, 
whatever the merits, when they can be locked away instead?

There was the Tackling Violent Crime Act - its centrepiece, mandatory 
minimums for people convicted of "serious gun crimes." Tuesday the 
National Post reported that Ontario Superior Court Judge Anne Molloy 
has gutted that law, finding that a minimum three-year-sentence for a 
young man guilty of being ridiculous (Leroy Smickle was collared, 
thank God, while pretending to be gangsta, waving a pistol and posing 
for a webcam), violates constitutional prohibitions against cruel and 
unusual punishment.

There's Bill C-10 itself - a grab bag of nine pieces of legislation 
the Tories tried but failed to land pre-majority. Nicholson, the 
justice minister, insists it's all about cracking down on pedophiles 
and organized crime. The bill says different: Possession of as few as 
six marijuana plants can confer a six-month stay in jail. We're asked 
to assume the small fry needn't worry, as police and prosecutors will 
apply common sense. Hmm. As they did in the Smickle case?

I've smoked pot, like most adult Canadians, and have friends who 
smoke it therapeutically. I'm not a big fan. In my experience 
marijuana induces only ravenous hunger and sleep. I don't think it 
should be legal. But neither do I see cause for further 
criminalization. What's the rationale? Apply the logic of the 
gun-registry debate. Is a criminal biker gang likely to be driven out 
of the trade by C-10? Criminals don't register their grow ops. If 
anything, further criminalization is likely to drive their profits higher.

More to the point, rates of violent crime have fallen steadily since 
the early 1990s. Statistics show that rates for many crimes 
correspond simply to ups and downs in the economy. That tells us that 
the so-called tough-on crime agenda is mainly theatre intended to 
mollify social conservatives rather than a lever to effect change. 
Based on the evidence, Canada doesn't need C-10. The Conservatives 
believe they need it. There is a difference.

But all that has been a mere preamble to two astonishing recent 
forays by Public Safety Minister Toews. First it emerged that in 2010 
he told the Canadian Security Intelligence Service that where human 
life is at risk, Canadian spies can use information obtained by 
torture - overturning years of Canadian policy, including 
Conservative policy, and the findings of the 2005 Arar Inquiry. No 
answer yet, to this question: When, where the security agencies are 
involved, is human life not at risk?

Then this week, not to be outdone by himself, Toews blurted that 
opposition critics of his new online surveillance bill, tabled 
Tuesday are siding with "child pornographers."

Really? The Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the federal and 
Ontario privacy commissioners have serious concerns about this bill. 
Are they in cahoots with the child pornographers? For that matter, is 
anyone critical of the Conservatives' security agenda in league with 
either the terrorists or the child pornographers? If so, that makes 
for a lot of terrorists and a great many child pornographers. Perhaps 
Canada is in the throes of a crime wave after all.

The Conservatives won a majority last May because thousands of 
centrist voters decided that Stephen Harper wasn't as scary as 
previously billed. Do they really want to tip that cart? Toews should 
give his head a shake. If he can't or won't, the PM should.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom